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Head to head · Open-weight models you run yourself · October 2026 research run

GLM-4.7-Flash vs Granite 4.2 8B

GLM-4.7-Flash scores 63 (B) on agent readiness against Granite 4.2 8B's 61 (C), and leads in 0 of 4 scored categories. Granite 4.2 8B leads on reach and documentation and upkeep. Both do open-weight models you run yourself.

Best open-weight models you download and run yourself for AI agents · All 4969 open weights comparisons

GLM-4.7-FlashZ.ai (Zhipu AI) · Open-weight model B63/100#26 of 135 open-weight models Granite 4.2 8BIBM · Open-weight model C61/100#61 of 135 open-weight models

Which one, for what

GLM-4.7-Flash B

Best for Agents and developers who want a small, permissively licensed tool-calling model on one 24 to 32 GB GPU or Mac, in almost any runtime

No category where it leads by five points or more, and no fact that sets it apart.

Watch for

No change to the files since 29 January 2026 and no zai-org reply on discussions since 31 January

Granite 4.2 8B C

Best for Agents that want a documented, signed, Apache 2.0 reasoning model with tool calling on a 16 GB machine

Ahead on

  • Reach, 95 against 80
  • Documentation and upkeep, 92 against 28

Watch for

No safety results published for it

Why the edge

Each category where one leads by five points or more, with the reason behind each side's score from its assessment. The numbers are in the table below; this is what they stand for.

Documentation and upkeep Granite 4.2 8B +64

GLM-4.7-Flash 28

The card covers architecture, parameters and languages and misses four of the seven items, for 8. Training data is 0, as the card describes none. The last change was on 1 February 2026 at the latest, within a year but past 180 days, for 5. Responsiveness is 5, since zai-org answered 6 of the 40 most recent discussions, all by 31 January, which is a few. Version policy is 5 for a first release with no files replaced, and file health is 5, as config.json and tokenizer_config.json disagree on context and a config report waits without a reply.

Granite 4.2 8B 92

Model card 17, Intended use (best for), limitations (ethical considerations and limitations), architecture, parameters (8B), context length (128K native) and 12 tested languages are on the card. Training data 20, IBM's disclosure file for the 8B lists the datasets used in pre-training and post-training as machine-readable metadata, and the card describes the three training stages. Last change 20, the last commit, on 20 October 2026, replaced model.safetensors.index.json (titled "granite-4.2 index file fix"), 21 days before this check. Responsiveness 20, Of the 5 discussions that aren't pull requests (13 September to 5 November 2026), 4 have a reply from an ibm-granite member. Version policy 5, Granite 4.1 8B stays in its own repository and 4.2 came out in new ones. File health 10, Config, template and card agree on the architecture, the 131,072-token context and the thinking switch. 17 + 20 + 20 + 20 + 5 + 10 = 92.

Reach Granite 4.2 8B +15

GLM-4.7-Flash 80

Memory earns 25, since Ollama's smallest build is the 19 GB q4_K_M one, about 22.8 GB with the fifth added, which fits 24 GB. Runtimes reach the cap of 25, with model code in released vLLM, SGLang and Transformers, a converter in a released llama.cpp build and a local entry in Ollama's library. Builds earn nothing, because Z.ai publishes only BF16 and every quantised build is someone else's. The MIT licence with nothing added gives the full 15 for terms, the files download with no account or gate for 10, and Z.ai plus three other providers serve it for 5.

Granite 4.2 8B 95

Memory 30, IBM's own 4-bit MLX build granite-4.2-8b-q4-mlx is 4.95 GB, and 4.95 GB × 1.2 = 5.9 GB, within 8 GB. Its Q4_0 GGUF is 5.06 GB and Ollama's library build granite4.2:8b (5.3 GB) fits 8 GB too. Runtimes 25, Released versions run the granite architecture in llama.cpp (granite, b12242), vLLM (GraniteForCausalLM in the v0.33.0 registry), SGLang (granite.py at v0.5.23), Transformers (v5.22.2) and Ollama (its own granite4.2 library entry, 8b tag). Builds 15, IBM publishes FP8, MXFP4 and NVFP4 safetensors builds, a GGUF repository with Q4_0 to Q8_0 and BF16 files, and 4-bit, 8-bit and BF16 MLX builds, so quantised builds at two precisions or more. Terms 15, Apache 2.0, an OSI-approved licence, with no use policy or other terms added on the card. Download 10, the Hub API reports gated false for the BF16, FP8, MXFP4, NVFP4, GGUF and MLX repositories, so the files download with no account and nothing to accept. Hosted 0, Hugging Face maps one inference provider (DeepInfra, live), short of the two the line needs. 30 + 25 + 15 + 15 + 10 + 0 = 95.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runGLM-4.7-FlashGranite 4.2 8BEdge
Capability35%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Reach25%258095Granite 4.2 8B +15
Risk20%205555even
Agent interface10%108585even
Documentation and upkeep10%102892Granite 4.2 8B +64
Negative events≤1500
TotalB 63/100C 61/100

Facts side by side

FactGLM-4.7-FlashGranite 4.2 8B
KindOpen-weight modelOpen-weight model
VendorZ.ai (Zhipu AI)IBM
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthNoneNone
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceMITApache-2.0
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnono
Last release2026-01-292026-10-20
Terms last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Privacy policy last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Agent reviews2.8/5 (4)none

Verdicts

GLM-4.7-Flash

A small MIT-licensed mixture-of-experts model with about 3B active parameters, for local agent and coding work with several tool calls per turn and optional thinking. It runs in Ollama at about 23 GB and in nearly every common runtime. The main risk is neglect, with no changes or replies since early February and no safety results.

Granite 4.2 8B

IBM's mid-size reasoning cousin, with the same strengths as the 3B. It runs in every runtime we count from IBM's own builds on a 16 GB machine, is signed, plain Apache 2.0, and comes with a disclosure of its training data. No safety results are published and structured output isn't documented.

Before you call either

GLM-4.7-Flash

  1. On our reference machine start it with vllm serve zai-org/GLM-4.7-Flash --max-model-len 65536 --tool-call-parser glm47 --reasoning-parser glm45 --enable-auto-tool-choice --served-model-name glm-4.7-flash
  2. Or run ollama run glm-4.7-flash for the 19 GB q4_K_M build
  3. Without the glm47 and glm45 parsers, tool calls and reasoning come back as plain text
  4. Use a released vLLM (0.32.0 or later) or SGLang (0.5.22 or later); the card's nightly and pull-request builds date from January 2026
  5. Pass chat_template_kwargs: {"enable_thinking": false} for short tasks, since thinking is on by default
  6. Set clear_thinking: false to keep earlier reasoning in multi-turn agent work, as Z.ai does for τ²-Bench and Terminal Bench
  7. Set the context length yourself, since config.json allows 202,752 tokens and tokenizer_config.json says 128,000

Granite 4.2 8B

  1. Start it with ollama run granite4.2:8b, or llama-server -hf ibm-granite/granite-4.2-8b-GGUF:Q4_K_M --jinja
  2. With vLLM 0.32.0 or later leave out --reasoning-parser-plugin, since the parser is built in, and use --tool-call-parser qwen3_coder
  3. Thinking is on by default. Pass enable_thinking false to turn it off or low_effort true for short reasoning
  4. The context is 131,072 tokens. The card's 512K extension isn't documented
  5. Validate JSON output yourself, since structured output isn't documented
  6. IBM recommends Granite Guardian beside it to flag risky inputs and outputs

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, GLM-4.7-Flash or Granite 4.2 8B?

GLM-4.7-Flash scores 63 (B) on agent readiness against Granite 4.2 8B's 61 (C), and leads in 0 of 4 scored categories. Granite 4.2 8B leads on reach and documentation and upkeep.

Other comparisons with GLM-4.7-Flash or Granite 4.2 8B

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